My wife and I had the pleasure of visiting Perfect Circle Farm and getting a walking tour with owner Buzz Ferver yesterday. It was my third trip there over the past 5 or six years and fun to see how the farm has progressed over that time. This farm serves as a nursery for fruit and nut trees, a trial orchard, and has commercial scaled plantings of some niche fruit such as seaberry. It is located in a bit of a frost pocket, zone 4b, and so screening plants for cold hardiness and early ripening is an ongoing task as Buzz enthusiastically bring plant material and species northwards. He imports a fair amount of seed and scionwood from other individuals and orchards, notably chestnuts, carya species, and many more. He has developed a web of connections with other growers in the fruit and nut world as well as being an avid fruit and nut explorer in his own region. Many grafted nut and selected seedling trees have been lined out for evaluation and some have started to produce their own crops. Buzz is generous with his time and highly dedicated to the mission of promoting tree crops.
Some highlights included seeing a persimmon seedling from Donald Compton seed which was one 25000 seedlings that had passed hardiness trials and was ripening fruit- look for this one in the future northern growers!
Chestnut tasting some large, sweet and easy peeling Chinese chestnuts from Bob Stiel’s orchard.
Seeing so many grafted nut trees; hickory, hican, walnuts, oaks oh my!
I picked up some McDaniels hybrid oak acorns for planting back home in Maine as well as some orchard type chestnuts.
Buzz says he’s retired, this nursery is a true labor of love.
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awesome! someday id like to get down there. im experimenting with persimmons and pawpaw here. if sucessful ill share on here , with Buzz. and with whomever is interested.
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Buzz will never retire – when it comes to hard work, he just can’t help himself! He’s been an inspiration to me and many others with the way he runs his nursery and relentlessly pursues new and improved genetics to propagate. Glad you got to visit.
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